Many years ago, I used to work as a medical scribe. If you’ve ever seen an old TV show or a movie where a doctor, speaking into a cassette tape, well basically what would happen was doctors would speak their notes onto cassette tapes. They would leave them and I would write them out in a way that was actually legible and didn’t look like a bunch of crayon scribbles in their notes. Granted, nowadays, they have voice-to-speech software for that, so I would be out of a job if I hadn’t already retired before technology could take over. Of course, medical scribes still do exist- but their work is vastly different from what mine was.
I was cleaning out my closet one day looking for… gods, I can’t even remember what it was now with all that’s been going on. But, I found a cassette tape nestled away in the corner. It surprised me because I did not have a habit of collecting them or anything- and I sure didn’t keep any with me when I retired given they belonged to the hospital.
I examined the cassette. It had a strange word written on its side.It was a word though that I found very hard to pronounce. But I mouthed it out to myself, trying to figure out what it could mean. I even tried Googling it on my phone and found no response with the search engine assuming that I had made a typo. It sounded vaguely… German to me though. Or perhaps it was Russian?
After some contemplation, I decided to go get my old tape recorder, which still worked and so I put the cassette in it and pressed ‘play’.
A male voice began speaking out.
Patient’s name, [REDACTED] , a 24 year old female patient with no significant past medical history presented from home with the chief complaint of auditory and visual hallucinations which started two weeks ago.
The patient is a waitress by profession. And as per her, these symptoms started after she bought a book at a local garage sale.
Inscribed within it were several horror stories, one of which described a ‘monster’ or as she said a ‘demon’ that was summoned by speaking its name which is BZZT [nothing but static was heard here].
She says that soon afterwards she started seeing a strange shadow standing behind her whenever she looked in the mirror.
Strange whispers would call out to her in the middle of the night.
Over time these symptoms progressed. The shadow, which was initially just a dark figure became more formed and more real every single day. The whispers rather than being incomprehensible started making sense to her.
They spoke, according to her, ‘some of the most vile, horrible things that she had ever heard.’
She refuses to say anything about them or to describe the entity in any way.
She presented to the ER because she felt she was going crazy and had contemplated throwing herself in front of a bus.
She has never had any symptoms like this before. There is no family history of psychiatric illness as per her, and no past surgical history on file.
She was agitated in the ER and was given a dose of haloperidol. She has calmed down somewhat but still claims hearing the voices. And she has been placed on one-to-one suicide watch.
I should not have had something like this. It was patient information and was HIPPA protected, so I was not allowed to take any of the tapes back home with me.
Just as I thought that was it. The voice again playing again.
Now, up until now, the voiceover had been fairly professional. If I guess that’s the right word to describe it. There was no panic in it. It was described in a neutral, flat tone. The next part. However, was sounded extremely
Staredt the patient on Seroquel for now, if It shows no improvement, we’ll consider olanzapine.
There was another pause after this.
Now, up until now the voiceover had been fairly professional, if I guess that’s the right word to describe it. There was no panic in it. It was described in a neutral, flat tone. The next part. However, was sounded extremely
Now, up until now, the voiceover had been fairly professional, if I guess that’s the right word to describe it. There was no panic in it. It was described in a neutral, flat tone. The next part however, sounded extremely panicked.
Oh God. I don’t even know why I’m recording this on this, but…
…something strange happened last night. I was brushing my teeth when I saw something behind me.
A shadowy figure in the mirror.
And initially, I thought this was just my mind playing tricks on me after a very long shift, but this morning, I saw it again.
A pause.
It’s been two days and day four since I’ve seen the patient [REDACTED]. And, I feel like her story has gotten to me, somehow.
Well, I can’t really allow myself to indulge in her delusions.
There was another pause before the voice started again. This time sounding far worse.
I don’t know how to describe it. It’s- It’s- It’s not fake? What this girl was saying, it’s not fake.
I can feel behind me. This monster BZZT it’s speaking to me whenever I’m alone.
And it turns out she is not completely forthcoming with their symptoms. I feel extremely cold even with the heater turned on, I also feel an impending sense of doom.
And every time I try to close my eyes to get some sleep, I see the visage of the horrible thing with its many faces and countless eyes, I don’t even wish to describe it.
I’ve signed off the case and handed it over to a colleague, but I feel like even the short vacation I’ve asked for may not help me.
There’s another pause at this point.
It’s come back again. It’s not getting better.
I’m clearly having some kind of shared psychosis with this patient. Maybe it’s just out of empathy or something of the sort, but I can’t keep going on like this. I’m going to go to the ER myself to have myself admitted
The tape ended there and there was nothing else on it.
I took it out and examined it again, wondering where it’d come from and why I had it after all these years, and lastly, what I should do with it. I didn’t even know which hospital was from. I’d worked for several so I couldn’t exactly return it but it was confidential information and I didn’t want to land myself in trouble by keeping it.
And then again, there was that name.
That name on the tape.
I had already mouthed it out so I think you all can see where this is going.
And for the last three days, I’ve been seeing a dark shadow behind me in the mirror.
And the whispers… I thought it was just my tinnitus acting up, but they’ve gotten louder. And now, I can understand them.
And I don’t want to understand them.
If there’s anyone out there who has ever encountered something like this, I would like some help.
Because I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to me. I couldn’t exactly find out what happened to that patient and doctor, but I can’t imagine it was good.